Madrid boys earn a pair of wins

Wednesday

Despite playing at a slower-than-desired pace, the Madrid boys swept past two opponents last week.

The first to fall was Panorama, 51-48, on Tuesday. Woodward-Granger was bested 58-49 on Friday.

Those victories followed a 73-69 triumph over West Central Valley on Dec. 8.

“Playing two close games in a row on the road was big for us in the learning process,” coach Kyle Stribe said of beating West Central and Panorama. “Along with that, it is always nice to get wins and learn at the same time.”

The Tigers, who began this week with a 6-1 record, shot 53.1 percent at Panorama, hitting 17 of 32 attempts.

“We were able to play with a lead the whole game as we got off to a good start,” Stribe said. “They did a nice job defensively and slowed our pace down, which forced us to play a half-court game.”

That suited Landen Burke, a 6-foot-3 post player, just fine. He finished with 16 points (on eight of 11 shooting) and 11 rebounds.

“He did a nice job of posting hard and being aggressive,” Stribe said. “Panorama did a nice job late in the game of cutting into the lead.

“We missed some free throws and let them drive to easily, which hurt us in closing the game out.”

The matchup with Woodward-Granger went back and forth, but Madrid eventually built a comfortable cushion going into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers connected on 55.8 percent of their shots (24 of 43).

“We knew that it would probably come down to late game situations,” Stribe said. “We were able to use our experience from (previous) games to help us close out Friday night.

“We were able to work on transition defense in a game and in practice,” Stribe added. “We felt if we could make Woodward work for their offense this would be to our advantage, even if it meant slowing the pace and sacrificing our running game.”